But Won’t People Die?

They told us we had to do it. We had to rush through Obamacare; passing it to find out what was in it, as Nancy Pelosi told us. We had to do it and it could not wait because lives were depending on it. We needed to save lives and we needed to provide women access to birth control.

Suddenly, yesterday, the Obama Administration announced it would deny women access to contraception paid for by their employer after campaigning throughout 2012 on just how important paying for abortions and birth control under employer provided plans would be.

If you aren’t following along, Barack Obama has decided to delay implementation of the employer mandate — the mandate that employers must provide health insurance to employees — until after the 2014 election cycle. The law that had to be passed quickly to save lives can now be delayed. So how many people will die? That was their rhetoric. Lives depended on Obamacare.

Contraception is now considered an “essential benefit” under Obamacare that employers must provide, but now it’s only going to be essential to those who already have employer health insurance. The rest of the women? Sorry.

Back on May 24, 2013, Ezra Klein opined that employers would not stop dropping employees when the employer mandate went into effect.

Now he says repeal it. We’re going to hear this a lot. Barack Obama suddenly does not think he needs a central part of his law so it can be scrapped.

What is ironic here is that the left has, for months, used the talking point that Republicans are causing problems by obstructing the implementation of Obamacare. Now, suddenly, the President is going to delay implementation of one part of Obamacare.

Republicans need to take notice. We sent them to Washington to end Obamacare, not mend it. There should be no fixes. There should only be a continued fight to repeal Obamacare. The law we had to have yesterday is suddenly a law that can be punted. That means we should be able to repeal it and, concurrently in the debt ceiling fight, work to defund it.

Employers who have held off hiring employees because of the employer mandate will not suddenly start hiring, knowing they’re just prolonging the inevitable fines and taxes. This delay leaves uncertainty in the economy and the whole law should be repealed or, at a minimum, fully defunded. There should be no half measures.